Paracelsus, his Archidoxis comprised in ten books : disclosing the genuine way of making quintessences, arcanums, magisteries, elixirs, &c : together with his books of renovation & restauration, of the tincture of the philsophers, of the manual of the philosophical medicinal stone, of the virtues of the members, of the three principles, and finally his seven books of the degrees and compositions, of receipts and natural things / faithfully and plainly Englished, and published by J.H., Oxon.

CHAP. III.

WHatever I have treated of in the former chapters, hath been onely to this end, that I might descend unto the following signs of Degrees, and that so it might be made manifest by what means or order the Degrees in the Elements consist: For I am not ignorant of the great dissention of Platearius, Dioscorides, Serapio, from this point; and of the others also, which have been followers of them, who have written many things of a Quintessence, but falsly.

But thou, whoever thou art, seek the knowledge of this Quintessence from Experience, for so shalt thou find out the Degrees in their division. But that it may also be manifested by what means Diseases may be driven out by the Quintessence, thou must first of all diligently observe the concordance or coherence of things and diseases; for some virtues give an assault onely in the Synodoia, other∣some in the Mania, or Madness; others in the Aschlyte, others in the Lethargy, &c. And this is to be imputed to the concordant property. I esteem it worth know∣ing in this place, that which lyes hidden in Nature, as in Gelutta, or the Herb Chameleon, and Bawm, which reno∣vate

and convey away the Disease without any virtue of the Degrees, viz. in renovating and repairing the former Juvenility, or Youthfulness and Lustiness: But by what reason or cause, and by what virtue these things are done, is declared in the Book of Long Life, as some certain pe∣culiar Mysteries, which (besides Arcanum's) are in the Nature of things. Wherefore I think it expedient to pass them over in this place, that so I may prosecute what I have begun, concerning the degrees of the four Elements. And although here are many and sundry vir∣tues which do overcome and conquer Diseases, some by their diaphoretick Nature, others by a Narcotick, others by other properties; yet as for these things, I refer them to those that give their mind to Theorems and Speculations.